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Sep. 15th, 2008

Home again, home again

I'm back from my trip, and now I'm feeling a bit worn out and having an awfully hard time getting back into the swing of things. I'll try to put together a recap soon, but I can say that the best film I saw was Danny Boyle's brilliant Slumdog Millionnaire and that Ethan Hawke has an extremely cute bum.

angela_snape, I'm so sorry we couldn't hook up, I didn't check my email once while I was there. Sadly, I never made it to The Purple Purl either, there just wasn't time to do everything I wanted to do. Next year I should plan to stay even longer.

I'm going to try to ease myself back into IJ-land, I've missed you all so much, but I beg your forgiveness if I don't go back into last week's posts. I did come home to those delightful HBP pictures of Harry and Draco. Damn, were the UST sparks flying or what? I also got the most fantabulous package from goddessriss, chock full of dark chocolates and Jaffa cakes. That woman knows the way straight to my heart!

Meanwhile, since omarandjohnny and bunnysquee have now both been subjected to my knitting, it's safe to post the pictures.

Sep. 3rd, 2008

TIFF: The Final Cut

mood: anxious

I know y'all are tired of hearing me go on and on about TIFF, but I do want to record my picks in my journal for posterity. Especially after getting up so early to fight with the online box office (which was, predictably, offline).

Sep. 1st, 2008

TIFF - first round of tickets.

mood: excited

We've just passed Stage One of the TIFF gauntlet. THANK YOU bunnysquee!!!!! Doesn't look like Zack and Mira Make A Porno is going to happen. :( That's fine, it'll probably be in wider release anyway and I prefer to see the ones that aren't released anywhere else, but I would have liked to hear Kevin Smith talk about it.

Aug. 27th, 2008

"Looks like an otter"

bunnysquee is putting in our TIFF requests in the morning. We've got a long list that we want to see, but this one is at the top of mine...

NSFW!!!

Please, please, please send us good vibes. We never get all our picks, but I really want to see this one ... AND KEVIN SMITH IS GOING TO BE THERE ... and please, please, please this would make me so amazingly happy ...

Aug. 20th, 2008

So much pretty

Aug. 3rd, 2008

Woot!

My soul is happy when I have a trip on the horizon. I need to remember that about myself -- I'm sure I'm not the only one, everybody needs to have something to look forward to, but for me, there's just something incomparable about the potential of travel. And not just the vague "I'll probably go somewhere in the spring" kind of thing. I need dates and email confirmations of ticket purchases and that irritating email from my boss telling me it's a bad time to take a vacation. Then it all feels real!

And I say all that because I sorted out my TIFF trip today and have been giddy every since. In a month I'll be glomping bunnysquee!!! I found an incredibly reasonable hotel right downtown, so I'll be there for a full five days -- and I'm taking the train there, which is so much better than the bus (and that was even before the beheading). I have no idea what films we'll see, but at this point that doesn't even matter.

I am enjoying the best weekend I've had in ages. I had oodles of fun with goddessriss perving up sdk's journal last night, then she rewrote that troublesome Sectumsempra scene for me (*squees*), then leda_speaks recced the brilliant Lust of the Conchords which just about killed me (if you enjoy FotC, you've got to check it out). Oh, and I started a brand new knitting project while watching Sex & the City (not a bad movie, I'm glad I didn't pay money for it, but it was a nice accompaniment to a few glasses of wine). Then today I finished my BBTP story!!! OMG that porn came slowly, and it refused to come without dragging along the angst ... you know, I'm almost starting to appreciate JKR's dreaded Epilogue for setting up infidelity like it does. Almost. Now I have two more pornlets that I'm going to try to crank out, and nearly a month to do it. Yep, I do like looking at that far horizon.

Jul. 29th, 2008

MS Office doth vex me

mood: cranky

music: CBC radio

I've been having serious MS Outlook woe lately—every time I close it, I get a message saying it encountered an error and has to close. Whatever, that's just mildly annoying. But today it wouldn't connect to the gmail POP server and that's not on. So I summoned up my courage and uninstalled Office. Boy, like I was telling muppet, watching all your files flip from Word and Excel docs to unreadable creatures needs to be on that list of most traumatic life experiences, not far behind divorce and losing your job. Both of which I've experienced, so I think the comparison is apt. Anyway, everything's reinstalled now, only a few hiccups in restoring my backup file, and gmail's feeding in now, but the error message is still there. Now it's gone from mildly annoying to grrr!

You know, last year when my sucky HP laptop was in the service centre for over 100 days and I was flipping through Staples' loaner computers, I got really good at installing and troubleshooting things. After a year of not having to deal with it, I've forgotten so much and I've lost a lot of the confidence in my abilities. I'm a bit sorry about that. Not that I want to return to those days, but I miss feeling that tech savvy.

Guess it's like anything you practice, tho, which is why I've really got to push myself to write. That muscle's atrophying too. I've got about 1000 words of my bbtp_challenge entry written but it's still pre-porn, dammit! *shoves the boys together* And I was really hoping to have a second one done by then, too. "The hammer is my penis" is far too tempting a prompt to ignore.

Wow, I can't believe it's almost August, scary thought there! Time to start thinking about the Toronto Film Festival (Sept 4-13). I'm debating whether to splurge and stay downtown (which would mean only going for a few days) or staying longer at a cheap hotel in the hinterlands. Of course, as always the schedule won't be released until like the day before the festival starts. Prepare to hear plenty of bitching about TIFF admin in upcoming weeks! (And if there's anybody in T who cares to meet up, please let me know! I'm definitely planning a visit to The Purple Purl this year.)

I learned a lot about this festival: (1) take the train, (2) stay downtown so as to catch the midnight movies, (3) don't give up on seeing films just because you don't have tickets (galadriel got into just about everything she wanted, several times), and (4) stay for a full week, with a day at the end before going back to work just so to catch up on my online life. Because right now the thought of going back that far is terribly daunting.

So next year, I'll know. All in all, it was a wonderful mini-break (I can't believe it's already over!) and I came back armed with a huge list of movies to look for over the coming year.

Sep. 9th, 2007

money, tickets, passport

mood: optimistic

Okay, kittens, this is it. Somehow I've squeezed clothes for four days into a backpack, my purse is stocked with the essentials (camera, extra batteries, and pocket rye), and I'm off to Toronto to stalk James McAvoy see lots of movies with bunnysquee, galadriel and Pierspaul. Write lots of porn while I'm gone!

Sep. 7th, 2007

sadness

mood: gloomy

I'm very sad today: Madeline L'Engle is dead. I still remember discovering A Wrinkle In Time when I was just a little girl, and being *amazed* that someone could think of the world that way. Although there've been many, many authors who have inspired my love of fantasy, she was the first.

I'm also sad because the Ex is coming over to pick up the kidlets (my cat and dog) soon. I'm lucky that he's so good about looking after them when I go out of town. But gosh, I'm going to miss them! They're both getting lots of cuddles now, and finger-fulls of peanut butter, which always gives Rudy the runs but hey, I won't be around to worry about it. :)

Sep. 4th, 2007

Movies and more movies

mood: ditzy

Monday flew by without giving me a chance to breathe. But today was a little less hectic, I even got some laundry done. Somebody broke into our laundry room -- pried right into the doorframe and got in, but didn't touch the machines. The landlord thinks it's somebody in the building who lost their key. (I showed him I still have mine!) People are so odd sometimes.

Just wondering, has anybody out there seen Until the End of the World? It's one of the most incredible movies ever, but unfortunately it's never been released on DVD so hardly anyone's ever seen it. However! I just discovered that the director's cut (280 minutes!) was released in Germany and I just ordered it -- the price tag was a bit steep, but $42 for nearly five hours of bliss should be worth it.

Aug. 27th, 2007

Freckles get me every single time

mood: busy

I was hitting my stride on a stupidly busy Monday, all the while bouncing a few emails back and forth to Pierspaul to plan our TIFF adventures. We paid $37.50 for gala tickets and I said I expected shirtless James McAvoy for that. Wench wrote back, "I expect to play connect the freckles on a shirtless James McAvoy for that."

And just like that, my concentration was dead. Stone dead. Not pining for the fjords, just dead.

So I thought, since work is a lost cause, I should hop on here and say hi to everybody, especially all the new folks from the phoenix_flies Friending Frenzy who've joined my regularly scheduled programming. Welcome!

The weekend was blissfully uneventful. I caught up on sleep, booked my bus tickets for Toronto, watched some movies, and even cranked out a few little goodies for Bring Back the Porn. And I only thought about work for about half an hour, which is a massive improvement. (Since I work at home, I have a nasty habit of letting work creep into my free time. I'm working hard to keep weekends sacred.) It means today's busier, but the break is worth it.

And I really should dive back in, since I'm going to see Rear Window tonight. One of my favourites, but I've never seen it on the big screen.

Aug. 25th, 2007

Stalker for Ten

mood: excited

The magnificent Pierspaul was a GODDESS and waited on hold all morning to snag tickets to the Gala screening of Atonement. I'm so hoping that both Keira and James will show up for it. But even if they don't, just the look of this film is going to be worth it.

Also turns out that I have a free place to stay AND I'm going to meet up again with my beloved bunnysquee and heartofslash AND I'm finally going to meet caras_galadhon! Despite all the frustration, this is shaping up to be a great festival.

Aug. 24th, 2007

Friday, Friday, Friday

mood: content

Man oh man, I love Fridays! I finished work early today and rewarded myself with a trip to the LCBO, where I stocked up on five nice bottles of wine -- gonna be a big weekend! Well, not really, but I do feel better when I have a fully stocked liquor cabinet. Nick and Nora are my idols, truly.

And so I'm about to kick back and enjoy my drink with one of my favourite guilty pleasures, the delightfully twisted Wings of the Dove. And maybe later, The Mummy. Yes, because it's been that kind of random week.

Oh, and TIFF plans are proceeding in spite of the festival organizers continued incompetence. I might possibly maybe have a place to stay! With someone who I don't know, in a part of town I don't know, but hey! Free! (And after a day of looking at "budget" hotels in Toronto plastered with reviews like "Whatever you do, don't stay here!" the thought of taking advantage of a stranger's kindness sounds mighty tempting.)

Aug. 22nd, 2007

It shouldn't be this hard...

mood: hungry

Oh, TIFF, how I hate you. Not only did you delay releasing the schedule, but now you've got a list of what films will be screened, and you're announcing ticket sales for the gala presentations, but you still haven't posted the full calendar and won't until August 28! WTF?!!! I know that the entire WORLD centres around Toronto, but there are a FEW of us who need to make travel arrangements and would like to coordinate this a little better.

I'm thinking that maybe I should just pick when I can stalk James McAvoy go and fit my film choices around that time. Seems to make more sense than trying to actually plan anything in advance. And really, I just need to get the hell out of Dodge! It feels like ages since I've gone anywhere, even Toronto sounds exotic!

This has been a long week already, and it's only Wednesday. Unbelievable! And swamped as I am, I've just taken on mod duties for a new forum my company's launched -- nothing fun either, I won't be discussing Atlantis weapons tech or Hogwarts holiday customs, but I do at least get commission. I just hope I have time to do it right, with the boss watching and all.

In cheerier news, I'm making carne asada for dinner. With fresh avocado and homemade salsa, numm. And I'm poking at a couple of PWPs. BRING BACK THE PORN IS IN TEN DAYS, PEOPLE! Get those smut gears greased!